Posted: Friday, June 26, 2009 11:40 am

Zac Wright

Weakley County native Isaac “Zac” Wright, son of Earl and Jenna Wright of Martin, was named this week to Arkansas’s “40 Under 40” list.
Published by Arkansas Business Magazine, the list is an annual compilation of the 40 most influential people in Arkansas business and politics under the age of 40.
Wright, 29, was the youngest of the 2009 honorees.
Not yet 30, the Westview High School alumnus is a veteran of two Presidential campaigns, three U.S. Senate races, two gubernatorial campaigns, a statewide coordinated campaign and a legislative special election.
Before becoming the youngest senior department director in Arkansas Governor Mike Beebe’s office, Wright had previously served as a Congressional staffer and advisor to former Congressman Harold Ford Jr. of Memphis, a senior staffer at the Tennessee Democratic Party, the youngest department director in Beebe’s gubernatorial campaign, and the youngest member of Beebe’s inaugural committee.
Arkansas Business Magazine described Wright in the “40 Under 40” awards edition published this month editorializing, "College kept getting in the way of opportunities as a political communications operative for Zac Wright.
At 20, he left school the first time to join the Gore-Lieberman 2000 campaign, becoming the youngest member of the national press staff.
Then, Wright split again to be deputy press secretary for then-U.S. Rep. Bob Clement’s unsuccessful run for U.S. Senator from Tennessee in 2002.
He finally got around to completing his bachelor’s in journalism in 2003, graduating summa cum laude from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville.
"Wright, 29, hasn’t lived in the same place for much more than a year since he left his home in Martin, Tenn., as an 18-year-old.
"He reckons he has moved 14 times, with nine interstate relocations on a meandering political road that has taken him across the Southeast from Louisiana to Washington, D.C., and back west to Arkansas. … Even his day job as the governor’s communications director couldn’t keep him from roaming when duty for the Democratic Party cause called.
His résumé includes leaves of absence for the South Carolina primary for the Hillary Clinton for President Campaign and to Missouri for the Jay Nixon for Governor Campaign."
Wright is the grandson of Wayne Stoker and the late Virginia Stoker of Gleason and the late Bertha and G.H. Wright of Erin.
WCP 6.23.09